WHILE we all speculate about the kind of world we will inhabit after the pandemic, there are changes happening now for many sports which will shape them for years to come.
US soccer is a case in point. The ongoing battle over parity for their women’s team has been well documented over the years, but what we might have missed during life in lockdown is the change at the top of the tree and what that might mean for the future.
To set the scene just a little bit, the US women’s national team is looking for nearly $67 million in damages as part of its gender discrimination lawsuit against the US Soccer Federations – although, due to the current crisis, the court date has been put on hold.
This is a team that has won four of eight World Cup titles since the championship began in 1991 and four Olympic gold medals since the first women’s soccer tournament in 1996. Their argument is that if this success had happened with the male team, the men’s side would have been paid more, something I have no doubt would have happened. US Soccer president Carlos Cordeiro resigned recently after stating that the male team had a greater level of responsibility than the women and that their job “requires a higher level of skill based on speed and strength”.
Cindy Parlow Cone has now taken on this role and appointed a new set of lawyers rejecting the argument, as well as the papers submitted by the previous attorneys who claimed that the women’s national team players had lesser skills and responsibilities.
She was quoted as saying: “Last week’s legal filing was an error, it resulted from a fundamental breakdown in our internal process that led to offensive assertions made by the federation that do not represent our core values.”
This could set a benchmark for women’s football globally and I for one can’t wait to see the outcome.
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